Dialogue and Deconstruction


Book Description

Text of and reflection on the 1981 encounter between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida, which featured a dialogue between hermeneutics in Germany and post-structuralism in France.




Deconstruction in a Nutshell


Book Description

This volume, now with a substantial new Introduction, represents one of the most lucid, compact and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language. Responding to questions put to him at a roundtable held at Villanova University in 1994, Jacques Derrida leads the reader through an illuminating discussion of the central themes of deconstruction. Speaking in English and extemporaneously, Derrida takes up with unusual clarity and great eloquence such topics as the task of philosophy, the Greeks, justice, responsibility, the gift, community, and the messianic. Derrida refutes the charges of relativism that are often leveled at deconstruction by its critics and sets forth the profoundly affirmative and ethico-political thrust of his work. The roundtable is marked by an unusual clarity that continues into the second part of the book, in which one of Derrida’s most influential readers, John D. Caputo, elaborates upon Derrida’s comments and supplies material for further discussion. This edition also includes a substantial new Introduction by Caputo that discusses the original context of the book and traces the development of deconstruction since Derrida’s death in 2004, from the rise of new materialisms to return to religion. Long one of the most lucid and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language, and an ideal volume for students, Deconstruction in a Nutshell will also prove illuminating for those already familiar with Derrida’s work.




Dialogue and Deconstruction


Book Description

Before the encounter in 1981 between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida, there had been virtually no confrontation or dialogue between hermeneutics in Germany and post-structuralism in France, nor has there been since then. Part I of this book makes available for the first time in English the complete texts of the encounter at the Goethe Institute in Paris. This exchange raised such issues as Gadamer's relation to psychoanalytic interpretation, the questionability of texts, Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche, and the dialogical aspect of language. Part II offers further reflections by Gadamer on the encounter itself and its relation of hermeneutics to deconstruction. Among the issues covered are Derrida's interpretation of "Destruktion" in Heidegger, Derrida's attack on logocentrism in Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche, and the relation of Heidegger, hermeneutics, and deconstruction to dialectic. Part III offers commentaries on the encounter from a variety of perspectives. The authors assess the original encounter as well as Gadamer's subsequent reflections on it.




Poetics of Deconstruction


Book Description

In Poetics of Deconstruction, Lynn Turner develops an intimate attention to independent films, art and the psychoanalyses by which they might make sense other than under continued license of the subject that calls himself man. Drawing extensively from Jacques Derrida's philosophy in precise dialogue with feminist thought, animal studies and posthumanism, this book explores the vulnerability of the living as rooted in non-oppositional differences. From abjection to mourning, to the speculative and the performative, it reposes concepts and buzzwords seemingly at home in feminist theory, visual culture and the humanities more broadly. Stepping away from the carno-phallogocentric legacies of the signifier and the dialectic, Poetics of Deconstruction asks you to welcome nonpower into politics, always sexual but no longer anchored in sacrifice.




Awaiting the Impossible


Book Description

This book dialogues with deconstruction's "religion without religion" and its implications for theology. In the view of many, deconstruction is a purely nihilistic force bent on the wanton destruction of long-held philosophical, religious, and moral traditions. However, this perspective ignores the fact that deconstruction--in the hands of its standard bearers like Jacques Derrida, John Caputo, and others--has all along been a religious exercise in demythologization. Furnishing a Christian rejoinder to deconstruction's claims about and objections to orthodox religion (and particularly to Christianity), the book addresses the following questions: How can deconstruction open a space for an affirmative faith to occur and be professed? Can deconstruction ever be hospitable toward Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah for which it waits?







Deconstruction and Philosophy


Book Description

Acknowledgments -- Note on Translations -- Introduction -- Deconstruction and the Inscription of Philosophy -- Infrastructures and Systematicity / Rodolphe Gasche -- Philosophy Has Its Reasons . . . / Hugh J. Silverman -- Destinerrance: The Apotropocalyptics of Translation / John P. Leavey, Jr. -- Deconstruction and the History of Metaphysics -- In Stalling Metaphysics: At the Threshold / Ruben Berezdivin -- Doubling the Space of Existence: Exemplarity in Derrida - the Case of Rousseau / Irene E. Harvey -- Regulations: Kant and Derrida at the End of Metaphysics / Stephen Watson -- A Point of Almost Absolute Proximity to Hegel / John Llewelyn -- Deconstruction and Phenomenology -- The Economy of Signs in Husserl and Derrida: From Uselessness to Full Employment / John D. Caputo -- The Perfect Future: A Note on Heidegger and Derrida / David Farrell Krell -- Deconstruction and the Possibility of Ethics / Robert Bernasconi -- Deconstruction--in Withdrawal? -- Following Derrida / David Wood -- Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand / Jacques Derrida -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.




The Deconstructive Turn (Routledge Revivals)


Book Description

What might be the outcome for philosophy if its texts were subjected to the powerful techniques of rhetorical close-reading developed by current deconstructionist literary critics? When first published in 1983, Christopher Norris’ book was the first to explore such questions in the context of modern analytic and linguistic philosophy, opening up a new and challenging dimension of inter-disciplinary study and creating a fresh and productive dialogue between philosophy and literary theory.




Derrida and Deconstruction


Book Description

The effects of Derrida's writings have been widespread in literary circles, where they have transformed current work in literary theory. By contrast Derrida's philosophical writings--which deal with the whole range of western thought from Plato to Foucault--have not received adequate attention by philosophers. Organized around Derrida's readings of major figures in the history of philosophy, Derrida and Deconstruction focuses on and assesses his specifically philosophical contribution. Contemporary continental philosophers assess Derrida's account of philosophical tradition, with each contributor providing a critical study of Derrida's position on a philosopher she or he has already studied in depth These figures include Plato, Meister Eckhart, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Foucault.




Deconstruction and Democracy


Book Description

‘No democracy without deconstruction': Deconstruction and Democracy evaluates and substantiates Derrida's provocative claim, assessing the importance of this influential and controversial contemporary philosopher's work for political thought. Derrida addressed political questions more and more explicitly in his writing, yet there is still confusion over the politics of deconstruction. Alex Thomson argues for a fresh understanding of Derrida's work, which acknowledges both the political dimension of deconstruction and its potential contribution to our thinking about politics. The book provides cogent analysis and exegesis of Derrida's political writings; explores the implications for political theory and practice of Derrida's work; and brings Derrida's work into dialogue with other major strands of contemporary political thought. Deconstruction and Democracy is the clearest and most detailed engagement available with the politics of deconstruction, and is a major contribution to scholarship on the later works of Jacques Derrida, most notably his Politics of Friendship.